Always
by erin.oswald.1
Summary: Aftermath of the events based on the Season 3 promo. Jay is kidnapped and beaten and Erin comes back to Intelligence to go in and get him out. Linstead. One Shot.


She heard a knock at her door. She looked at the clock. 1:25am. 'Well, I might as well get it' she thought as she got up from the couch. She had still been awake. She hadn't gotten much sleep since that day. 4 days ago. She made her way across her hardwood floor and reached for the handle, not bothering to look through the peep hole. She had a feeling she knew who it was or could be. Two people popped into her head as she turned the handle. She opened it and saw those blue eyes staring back as her. He looked at her for a moment and she took in his facial features. Small cuts where the larger ones was were. The black underneath his eye was nearly gone and he looked as though he hadn't gotten much sleep either. She didn't say a word as she stepped aside and let him in. She shut the door behind him and followed him into her bedroom. She folded back the covers of her bed and slipped off her sweatshirt. On the other side, he too, slipped his shirt over his head and climbed into the bed beside her. They never said a word as they lay next to each other. Their minds drifted into the events that happened the days before. She felt tears well up in her eyes and turned her body, to lay on her side, her back to him.

He sighed and turned his head to look at her form. As he did he noticed, under her tank top, the cuts, scrapes and scars on her back that remained of her heroic rescue of him. He remembers the thoughts he had before he saw her walk into that room. He remembered thinking he would never see her again. Thinking how he would never get a chance to tell her how he felt. Thinking about the moments he had had with her, and how he would never get those moments. She wasn't the same person to him in that moment that she was when they met for the first time. But when he saw her walk up to him, the look on her face, he knew she had come back to him. He remembered hearing that heartbreaking crash of the glass table as her back went through it. And those scars and cuts he was looking at on her skin, they would remind him that she saved him. She saved him from the man he was before, from the things he used to hold on to, the good and bad. She saved him. His arm came out from under him and he reach forward, lightly touching the larger of the scars, tracing it with his finger. He half expect her to jump at his touch. But she didn't. She simply lay next to him, trying to not let the tears leave her eyes.

She felt his touch on her back. She went in to help him and ended up getting herself hurt in the process. What kind of person was she? Was she really a hero? She didn't feel like one. She felt like a failure. She told this man that lay beside her that she would always be there for him. But she checked out right before he needed her most. She was supposed to be his partner. To have his back. And she failed. Her mind went back to the feel of his touch on her back. "Thank you." His voice cut through the silence of the night. The first words spoken since he showed up. She was shocked at his words. "For what?" She asked. She wanted to know what he was talking about. She was thanking him? She let him down. What could he possibly be talking about? "For coming back." He took his fingers off of her skin and she felt a unsettling cold feeling go through her body. She turned around under the blankets and met his gaze. "You came back." He said. She sighed. She reached out and touched his cheek lightly, running her fingers across the scuff on his face. "For you." She said. For the first time, in a long time, he smiled. She returned it to him. That feeling came back to her. The feeling she longed for for a long time. A time that almost felt like forever. She felt happy. He touched her hands and linked their fingers, taking it from his cheek. He leaned forward and stopped. She looked at him.

"Always." He said. She closed the gap between them and kissed him. The kiss would send the into a long, dreamless sleep and into a new start for them both. Together.


End file.
